Arden University: DAT7003 Data Design Report - Palmolive UK

This report presents a data design case study centered on Palmolive UK, focusing on the underperformance of its Hygiene-Plus Fresh liquid hand wash. The study begins with a business objective to investigate the reasons for the product's poor sales and a corresponding research question regarding the factors affecting sales and potential improvement measures. The report details the data requirements, emphasizing the need for primary, qualitative data collected through customer surveys to understand consumer perceptions. It outlines ethical considerations like informed consent and data confidentiality, along with risk assessments. The report then evaluates the effectiveness of a close-ended survey questionnaire, discussing its strengths such as time efficiency and the ability to gather specific feedback, as well as weaknesses like potential for biased outcomes and limited answer choices. The methodology section describes the use of an automatic data collection method, purposive sampling of 30 customers, and the structure of the survey, including demographic and non-demographic sections with replicable scales. The data collected is categorized as qualitative with discrete variables and nominal/ordinal attributes. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the data design process, from problem identification to data collection and analysis, offering insights into how Palmolive UK can address the business challenge and improve its product offerings.

Running head: DATA DESIGN
Data Design: Case study on Palmolive UK
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1DATA DESIGN
Answer 1
Introduction
In business operations, various issues come up which require analysis of the information
to get the solution. On the basis of the nature of the problem, the type of data that should be
collected is determined. Hence, business problems require both primary and secondary data
obtain the solution. Furthermore, the data can be qualitative or quantitative or both and based on
the features, the relevant data analysis method is chosen. In the given report, a hypothetical case
study will be analyzed to highlight various aspects of data type, collection and analysis for
addressing a business problem. The paper will commence with a business objective and a
following business research question, which will be explained with the type of data required to
address the business problem, and will be followed by suitable type of data analysis technique,
risk assessment techniques, ethical concerns and the expected outcome.
Business objective
Palmolive is a leading personal care brand in the UK. It has three categories of product
range, namely, Body Wash, Liquid Hand Wash and Men’s Care. Over more than half a century,
Palmolive has established its brand name in millions of household not only across the UK, but
also across the world (Palmolive.co.uk 2020). Every year, Palmolive changes its product ranges,
such as, sometimes, it introduces new product range or modifies any existing product based on
the customer reviews. This is a part of Palmolive’s sales and marketing strategy to stay ahead of
the market competition. Currently, Palmolive offers eight varieties of liquid hand wash. These
eight hand wash have different distinct ingredients and hence are available in different colors and
fragrances and also for different customer groups (Palmolive.co.uk 2020).

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In 2019, the Hygiene-Plus Fresh liquid hand wash did not brought expected revenue for
the company. The hand wash has eucalyptus extract as the major ingredient and comes in a fresh
blue color. The primary purpose of this product is to fight with germs and bacteria, while leaving
a refreshing smell and softer feel to the hands. However, despite claiming that Hygiene-Plus
Fresh kills 99.9% bacteria, the sales revenue was not up to the mark in comparison to the other
liquid hand wash products and those of the rival companies. Hence, the business objective of
Palmolive is to investigate the reasons for the poor performance of Hygiene-Plus Fresh liquid
hand wash and to address those issues in their next product modification cycle for reviving the
market position as the leading personal care product manufacturer.
To meet the business objective, Palmolive requires to conduct a market research. It aims
to conduct a survey on the consumers, to gain the information regarding the customer complaints
about Hygiene-Plus Fresh hand wash and the measures that can be taken to improve the issues.
Research question
1) What are the factors that affected the sales volume and revenue of the Palmolive
Hygiene-Plus Fresh Liquid Hand Wash negatively?
2) What measures can be taken to improve the sales and revenue of the hand wash product?
Data requirement and its justification
Given the nature of the research question and business objective of Palmolive, it can be
inferred that market research is required to address the research issue in the most precise manner.
A fall in the sales revenue of a product indicates lowering demand for it. Hence, to understand
the level of acceptance of a product to the customers, it is essential to collect feedback or review
directly from the consumers. This is termed as primary data as it will be collected directly from

3DATA DESIGN
the first hand sources. Collection of primary data will enable Palmolive Company to understand
the perspective of the customers regarding their product, which would help them addressing the
issues in the most precise manner.
Qualitative data will be collected for this study. This type of data will be chosen as this
would enable the company to apply exploratory research to analyze the data. Exploratory
analysis suitable for investigating the causes leading to declining sales of the particular liquid
hand wash in 2019. Since, no particular cause can be identified, hence, research hypothesis
cannot designed to examine the causal relationship between predictor and response research
variables and quantitative study is not possible in this case (Queirós, Faria and Almeida 2017).
As primary data will be collected directly from the customers of Palmolive, there are
some ethical concerns that should be addressed. Firstly, informed consent will be taken from
each of the participants. The purpose and objective of the study will be explained to them before
they decide to participate in the data collection process. Secondly, no participants will be asked
any personal question and there will be voluntary participation right for each of the participants.
Thirdly, data confidentially will be maintained (Van Den Hoonard 2001).
The study will have some risk factors such as, there can be incomplete information if
some participants leave the survey mid-way, and if there the responses do not display accurate
information about the product. Hence, to avoid these risks, the questions should be framed with
easy wordings. It should be made interesting so that they do not leave midway and also feel
motivated to complete the data collection process (Pfleeger and Kitchenham 2001).
Hence, Palmolive will use the survey method to collect primary information from the
customers to understand the loopholes of the Hygiene-Plus Fresh liquid hand wash so that they

4DATA DESIGN
can modify the product features in the next version and gain back the market share for this
particular product variant.
Answer 2
Effectiveness of employed data collection tool: Survey questionnaire
Palmolive UK will collect primary data from the customers through a survey. The survey
questionnaire will contain 7 close ended questions, divided in two segments, demographic and
non-demographic. The major benefit of conducting the survey is that it is quite effective in
collecting large information within a short span of time (Rice et al. 2017). Survey method of data
collection has been chosen as conducting interviews regarding the perspective of the customers
about their Hygiene-Plus Fresh liquid hand wash is not feasible and possible. Therefore, by
applying the survey method of data collection, Palmolive can collect as many responses as
possible within a given time.
The strengths of survey method of data collection are that it is time and cost effective.
The researcher can gather large number of information from sample population in a short span of
time. Secondly, depending on the wordings of the questions, the respondents can provide much
precise answers to the survey questions (Leggett 2017). Thirdly, close ended questions are
beneficial for narrowing down the scope of responses, making the analysis easier and the
participants can also fill up the survey form without spending too much time, which is desirable.
Fourthly, it is also easier to administer. Lastly, standardized surveys have less chances of having
error.

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On the other hand, there are also some weaknesses of close ended survey method.
According to Huffman and McCluskey (2017), it is often observed that standardized surveys
have lower validity as the answer choices may not include all the possible outcomes. Secondly,
customized surveys can lead to biased outcomes or errors. Thirdly, the dataset might contain
large number of missing data due to no responses. Fourthly, due to the wordings chosen, the
interpretation of the questions might be different to the respondents than the meaning presented
by the researcher. In such cases, there can be inaccurate outcome of the research. Lastly,
choosing a proper sample size is quite difficult and that often depends on the judgment of the
researcher. That might lead to biasness in the data, and if the proper sample cannot be reached
out, that would lead to inaccurate outcome.
Answer 3
The personal care company of the UK conducted a close ended structured survey on the
customers to get their perception about the Hygiene-Plus Fresh Liquid hand wash in order to
understand their preferences and the factors contributing in the negative and falling revenue for
the Hygiene-Plus Fresh liquid hand wash product. In this case, the company chose the automatic
data collection method, in which survey method of primary data collection was implemented.
Surveys and interviews are considered as obtrusive data collection method (Bryman 2008). In
this method, the participants are aware that they are being studied and these techniques are
highly suitable to meet the research questions as these enable the researchers to design the data
collection tool as per the research or business requirement (Bryman 2015). Data driven approach
has been followed in this case. It is also known as bottom-up approach and it is an inductive
research approach. The company, that is, Palmolive UK would investigate the survey response
data to find out the issues with the Hygiene-Plus Fresh Liquid Hand Wash, which would lead to

6DATA DESIGN
the reasons for falling revenues from the product. The business issues are presented in the survey
questions as per the understanding of the researcher.
In order to conduct the survey, the company chose 30 respondents from their customer
profiles. Based on their purchase history in the past two months, Palmolive selected those 30
customers from different stores’ database and they were intimated via their email. Hence,
purposive sampling method was applied to select the sample size from the larger population.
This is a non-probability sampling technique, in which the selection of the sample is not random
and each sample does not have equal probability of being selected. Under purposive sampling,
the judgment and rationality of the researcher is important as the sample is selected on the basis
the particular purpose of the research (Etikan, Musa and Alkassim 2016). As the sampling is not
random, it might generate biased or inaccurate outcome, however, the questions are framed in a
manner that would not create ambiguous meaning for the participants and they could answer the
questions easily.
They were explained the purpose and objective of the study and once they gave their
informed consent, the survey form was sent to them. The demographic for the survey contains all
gender and age less than 25 years to more than 51 years. Their occupation status to understand
their purchasing ability and their association with the Palmolive Company. The purpose of this
demographic section is to understand the target market for the liquid hand wash product range of
Palmolive, which is beneficial for determining the price range of the hand wash.
The survey questions are based on the specific purpose of understanding the perception
of the customers of Palmolive UK regarding the liquid hand wash product Hygiene-Plus Fresh.
The Palmolive website does not have options for posting feedback or reviews from the customers

7DATA DESIGN
and hence, to get the idea about the product performance, the survey was conducted. The non-
demographic section of the questionnaire contained three simple close ended questions that
focused on the customers’ preference about the product features, opinion of the respondents
when the product is compared with another variant and the feedback regarding the features that
should be modified or upgraded by the company. Replicable scales were used for the answers.
On one hand, that is beneficial for both the respondents and the company to keep the horizon of
the information controlled for precise data analysis, however, on the other hand, the answer
choices might not contain all accurate options for the customers, and in that case, the outcome
would not be precise (Shapiro et al. 2004).
All the data generated from the survey are qualitative. The dataset contains categorical,
discrete variables with text data types and nominal and ordinal attributes. The product features,
gender, occupation status are discrete variables where the answer options are not in any
particular order, and hence these have nominal attribute. On the other hand, age group and years
of association with the brand are categorized in a sequence or order and hence have ordinal
attribute. The replicable scale is used to convert the response choices into numeric values and for
conducting exploratory analysis.
The survey was conducted using Google form. It is an online survey method where the
participants are sent the link to the survey via their emails. As in this case, Palmolive used the
company database to get contact information of the 30 customers and asked them to participate
in the survey. Once the required data is submitted by the respondents, the dataset is downloaded
in the CSV (Comma-Separated Value) format. It is the most common file format for the tabular
text information. For further analysis, the CSV file was imported to MS Excel file.

8DATA DESIGN
Table 1: Snapshot of the survey responses
The above image depicts the excel file containing the response data. It can be seen that all
the columns contain string variable, that is, text data. These information has been analyzed using
qualitative analysis method.
Answer 4
Data analysis process is based on non-linear procedures. It consists of many steps, such
as, business understanding, data understanding, data preparation, modelling, evaluation and
deployment (Song and Zhu 2016). Various models data analysis are used as per the requirement.
These models show the data integration points with the business needs. The Acquire-Prepare-
Analyse-Act Model (Allen 2015) has been followed in this product performance study by
Palmolive UK.

9DATA DESIGN
Figure 1: The Acquire-Prepare-Analyse-Act Model
(Source: Allen 2015)
Step 1 is the acquire phase, in which data collection and understanding take place. Step 2
is to prepare the data by normalizing, integrating and cleaning. Step 3 is the analyze phase,
where analyzing and data modelling techniques are applied. Lastly, step 4 represents the Act
phase, where decision making and implementing takes place (Allen 2015).
In this given study, Palmolive has collected primary information through online survey
method. Hence, acquire phase has been completed. In step 2, that is, in the Prepare phase, the
exploration of the data is necessary to understand the precise methods required to analyze the
data as per research and business requirements and to answer the defined research questions. In
case of much missing values, or if the data is not meeting the business and research objectives,
the data might have to be collected again. For an in-depth analysis, both primary and secondary
data are collected. The secondary information, such as, consumer behavior theories, journal

10DATA DESIGN
articles about product performance, consumer preferences and business performances etc. are
used for validating and providing extensive information about the findings.
In the third phase, that is, for analysis, the prepared dataset is used and appropriate
analytical tools are applied. In case of quantitative data, statistical and mathematical functions
are applied on the dataset to get the answers to the research questions. For qualitative data, the
text information is interpreted on the basis of the responses and evaluated whether the
information is meeting the research objectives (Allen 2015). In the last phase, based on the
findings, decision is made and implemented to resolve the business issue.
The survey for the feedback on Hygiene-Plus Fresh liquid hand wash has generated
qualitative information and the dataset is prepared in the MS Excel file. The dataset has been
saved to the Excel file from the CSV file downloaded from the Google form. Qualitative analysis
using text has been applied on the dataset and the findings are as follows:
Female Male Prefer not to say
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
10
16
4
Gender Profile
Figure 2: Gender profile of participants

11DATA DESIGN
The response data shows that majority of the respondents are male 16 (53.3%), followed by
female 10 (33.3%) and 4 (13.3%) refused to divulge their gender. This indicates that people
belonging to all genders are customers of Palmolive, who in the last two months bought liquid
hand wash.
Less than
25 years 26 - 30
years 31 - 35
years 36 - 40
years 41 - 45
years 46 - 50
years 51 years
and above
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 9
4
5
4
2
4
2
Count of age group
Figure 3: Age group of the participants
The above pie chart shows he demographic for the sample contains people belonging to
all age groups. However, the maximum number of respondents 9 (30%) belonged to the age
group of less than 25 years, followed by 5 (16.7%) in the age group of 31 to 35 years. Only 2
people fell each in the categories of 41 to 45 years and 51 years and above. There are equal
number of respondents (4) under the age group of 26 to 30 years, 36 to 40 years and 46 to 50
years. It indicates that Palmolive has customers belonging to all age groups, who bought liquid
hand wash in the last two months.